- THOMAS JEFFERSON 




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p ir I L, A D E r. p ir I A : 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1890. 



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Copyright, 1890, by J. B. Lippikcott Company. 




THOMAS JEFFERSON. 



Jefferson, Thomas, third president of the United 
States, was born at Shadwell, Albemarle county, 
Virginia, 13th April 1743. His father, Peter Jeffer- 
son (d. 1757), of Welsh descent, was a planter and 
surveyor of note in the colony, and a member of the 
House of Burgesses ; his mother was a granddaugh- 
ter of William Randolph (1650-1711). Thomas 
Jefferson was the third child and eldest son of a 
family of ten children. He entered William and 
Mary College at the age of seventeen, three years 
after the death of his father, and remained there two 
years. In 1767 he was admitted to the bar, and 
practised with success. In 1769 he was a delegate 
to the House of Burgesses, and here his first impor- 
tant effort was in support of a motion for the easier 
emancipation of slaves. The passing of the Boston 
Port Bill, to take effect on ist June 1774, decided 
Virginia to make common cause with Massachusetts, 
and Jefferson favoured the resolution passed in the 
Assembly of Virginia to set apart the first day of 
June as a day of fasting and prayer. The governor, 
Lord Dunmore, offended by this action, dissolved 



4 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

the Assembly, and the members met in the Raleigh 
Tavern, WilHamsburgh, and resolved to advise the 
people of Virginia to send deputies to a convention 
to consider the affairs of the colony and elect del- 
egates to a general colonial congress. Jefferson was 
chosen a member of the convention, and, unable to 
attend, he sent a communication which was published 
under the title of ' A Summary View of the Rights 
of British North America.' It was not adopted as 
written by Jefferson, still he was threatened by Lord 
Dunmore with prosecution for high-treason ; and his 
name was included in a bill of attainder moved in 
parliament, but not pressed to a vote. Jefferson was 
a member of the second congress, which met at 
Philadelphia in 1775, and took his seat on 25th 
June, a {q\n days after the battle of Bunker Hill. 
Here his unswerving devotion to his country's 
cause, his close acquaintance with English law, 
and his manner, characterised by John Adams as 
'prompt, frank, explicit, and decisive,' secured him 
the respect of the House. He was re-elected to the 
third congress (1776); and on 7th June Richard 
Henry Lee, of Virginia, as instructed by his con- 
stituents, moved that independence should be de- 
clared. Congress fixed ist July for the consider- 
ation of Mr. Lee's motion, and meanwhile appointed 
a committee of five to prepare a suitable declaration 
on which to act ; Jefferson was chairman, and the 
others were Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, 
and Robert R. Livingston. By request of his col- 
leagues, Jefferson wrote the draft of the declaration 
which was submitted to the House on 28th June. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. ^ 

Lee's resolution was passed July 2, and the formal 
declaration, essentially as submitted, was adopted 
July 4, 1776. 

Jefferson now resigned his seat, and, although ap- 
pointed a commissioner to France with Franklin and 
Silas Deane, he declined the office in order to serve 
the people of Virginia in forming a state constitu- 
tion. Among the reforms largely due to him were 
laws converting estates tail into fee-simple, abolish- 
ing the principle of primogeniture, and establishing 
the freedom of religious opinion. He succeeded 
Patrick Henry as governor of Virginia in 1779-81 ; 
and during the invasion of the state by Arnold and 
Cornwallis he was equal to the emergency. In 1783 
he was elected to congress, then sitting at Annapolis, 
Maryland, where he secured the adoption of the deci- 
mal system of coinage. He was sent in the sum- 
mer of 1784 to act with Franklin and Adams as 
plenipotentiary in negotiating treaties of commerce 
with foreign nations; but in this mission they were 
not very successful, the only treaties effected being 
with Prussia and Morocco. The next year Jefferson 
succeeded Franklin as minister to France, just before 
the opening events of the Revolution. He remained 
during the stormy meetings of the National Assem- 
bly and the destruction of the Bastille, performing 
with much tact the delicate duties of ambassador, 
but evidently in sympathy with the revolutionary 
movement. In 1789 Washington appointed him 
secretary of state, but he did not enter on the duties 
of the office till March 1790. From the origin of the 
two political parties. Federal and Republican, Jef- 



6 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

ferson was the recognised head of the latter, while 
the other members of the cabinet and the president 
were Federalists. On ist January 1794 Jefferson 
withdrew from public life to his estate at Monticello 
to devote his leisure to agricultural pursuits and his 
favourite literary and scientific studies. 

From this retirement he was called to the vice- 
presidency of the United States in 1797 ; and in 1 801 
he was chosen president by the House of Represent- 
atives on the thirty-sixth ballot. The popular vote 
re-elected him by a large majority for the next pres- 
idential term. During the eight years of his admin- 
istration party spirit ran high. Among the chief 
events of his first term were the war with Tripoli, 
the admission of Ohio, and the Louisiana purchase; 
of his second term, the firing on the Chesapeake by 
the Leopard, the Embargo, the trial of Aaron Burr 
for treason, and the prohibition of the slave-trade. 
For these and nearly all other acts and events of his 
administrations Jefferson was as warmly praised by 
some as blamed by others. In 1809, after nearly 
forty years of public service, he bade adieu to- polit- 
ical life and strife. Henceforth his time was devoted 
to the cultivation of his estate, to boundless hospi- 
tality, to the interests of education, and especially to 
the establishment and superintendence of the Uni- 
versity of Virginia. He died at Monticello, July 4, 
1826, a few hours before the death of John Adams. 
Among his papers was found this inscription for his 
tomb: 'Here lies buried Thomas Jefferson, author 
of the Declaration of American Independence, of 
the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. y 

Father of the University of Virginia.' In person he 
was over six feet in height, with blue eyes, fair com- 
plexion, broad forehead, and, in early life, red hair. 
He was a good classical scholar, and proficient in 
the science of his day, a ready writer and fluent 
talker, but not an eloquent orator. 

We have his Writings, Correspondence, ^'c. (9 vols. ed. by H. A. 
Washington, New Yorlv, 1853-54), his Notes on Virginia (Paris, 
1 781), and his Manual of Parliamentary Practice. See Lives by 
Tucker (1837), Parton (1874), and Morse ('American Statesmen' 
series, 1883); also Adams, The First Administration of Thomas Jef- 
ferson (2 vols. New York, \\ 



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